SNEAK ATTACK FEMINISM

VIACOM- Comedy Central – Broad City (Season Four Launch)

By Valerie Milano

Beverly Hills, CA (The Hollywood Times) 7/26/17 – Broad City is a comedy show that declares its mission statement by name. ‘Broad’ comedic brush strokes – by and for – ‘Broads’.  Season four continues the manic, directionless exploits of BFF’s Ilana and Abby who knucklehead around the streets of New York, swatting nihilistic bon mots back and forth like a suffering badminton bird. Along the way, they smoke, screw, snort, swear and call bullshit on everyone and everything within their blast radius. Think Laverne and Shirley suffering the punctual blues after a couple of triple shot cappuccinos.

Broad City set the bar high from the beginning.  The original pilot was a dizzying, parallel plotline that merged The Chaos Theory (The Butterfly Effect) with a barfing subway rider. One tiny course correction (the trajectory of said vomit) set in motion a chain of events that either resulted in a lifetime of friendship and adventure or a messy double fatality courtesy of a speeding bus. The pilot set a new standard for edgy. If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, Broad City is a show about nothing 2.0,with an estrogen kicker.

THT and other journalists recently had the opportunity to speak with Broad City’s co-stars Abby Jacobson and ILana Glazer.

When this reporter asked the stars about a Wall Street Journal article that referred to the show as “sneak-attack feminism:”

ILANA GLAZER: “This writer, Megan, said that about us, and we’ve been using it, that phrase, ever since, because it actually helps us define what the show is doing. And she said that a long time ago about the Web series when it wasn’t like the same type of consciousness that we have about the show now. Now it seems like this sneak-attack approach is it’s like you’re watching a show, or any kind of content, and you don’t you kind of absorb the messaging via osmosis rather than the message being told to you right there.

And that’s what I think our show is. It represents this feminist hopefully intersectional feminist message, but it’s not like it’s not like part of the plot line. It’s just in the texture of the show organically.”

The stars spoke about the show’s unapologetic attitude towards casual drug use:

ABBI JACOBSON: “ I think obviously that just stemmed from Ilana and I smoking pot and everyone we know smoking pot and it not feeling like such a big deal.”

ILANA GLAZER:  “And also, like, experimenting with drugs in general, just the way the characters and people in the world experiment with pleasure centered activities. These girls get each other drinks, and they do their drugs together. They’re not, like, going out and getting in dangerous situations.”

ILANA talked about how the current political situation is addressed in Broad City after a hiatus during election season:

ILANA GLAZER: “With this hiatus, just creatively, we were like, “It’s going to be so nice to have that moment away from these scripts and come back and make them so much better than before because we have more clarity and the distance and whatever. But the clarity of the election happening, it just it solidified all these messages that you know, we were just talking before about messaging and how the consciousness of our messaging has increased over the seasons as our platform has grown and as we’ve gotten more relatively comfortable in this position with this platform.

But I think you can see in the industry right now, everybody’s message is becoming clearer. If you aren’t talking about the political landscape, that’s kind of something. You’re, like, not talking about it. It’s not just I don’t know. It’s not casual, and if you’re going to talk about it, you have to, like, clearly state your beliefs and where you stand ethically or politically. So, we just see our messages heightened and crystallized this year after that hiatus.”

ABBI JACOBSON: “And I think you see that episode does it a little bit more than the others, but it’s peppered in throughout. It’s not all politics.”

THT wanted to hear a little about the “Odd Couple” and ABBI talked about how real life chemistry factored into the creation of “Broad City”, specifically, the comedic possibilities of the “odd couple” dynamic:

ABBI JACOBSON: “Why odd couples are often such good matches. Yeah. I think for sure. Ilana and I met originally in an improv team. We were the only two women, but we started making “Broad City” just because our friendship was this dynamic of us being pretty different. And I don’t know. I think we still those have the same differences. Maybe we’re a little more similar now because our jobs are exactly the same. But I think the differences within friends are often what draws them together. Obviously, there’s similarities, but yeah, it’s that banter that keeps it going.”